The battlespace for the Navy looks a lot different oday than it did 10 years ago, with technolog- ical advances creating both vulnerabilities and
opportunities. Ushering in a new era of warfare are
“cyber warriors” who are developing ways to take the
fight to the enemy — not just in terms of defending
networks, but attacking things like air defenses.

Expanding cyber capabilities has long been a priority of the Navy, but the rapid evolution of the cyber
domain in recent years promises to put those cyber
warriors on the front lines of any conflict that would
erupt against a major power today. The Navy has the
ability today to use cyber attacks, along with traditional methods like jamming radars and missiles, as a way
to combat enemy air defenses, and this new ability
represents a sea change in Navy tactics.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John M. Richardson,in “A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority,”released in January, stated that cyber was undeniably agrowing part of the Navy’s efforts, and that includes newways of using cyber capabilities todo battle with opposing forces.

As part of his pledge to “strength-en naval power at and from thesea,” Richardson said that one ofthe initiatives is to “expand theelectromagnetic maneuver warfareconcept to encompass all of infor-mation warfare, to include spaceand cyberspace.”Peter Singer, a strategist for theNew America Foundation and anexpert on 21st century warfarewho, with August Cole, authoredthe futuristic thriller “Ghost Fleet”in 2015, said that conducting cyberattacks on enemy air defenses isnot yet common on the operationalside — it is not being done againstIslamic State forces, for example,“It’s starting to be worked on a great deal within thetraining and the experimentation and the war-gamingside,” Singer said.

He compared the growing influence of cyber warfare
to what the Navy was going through in the 1920s and
1930s with the introduction of the aircraft carrier, a
new asset that required a total overhaul of current naval
strategy, operations and training to accommodate it.

As far as the maturity of this type of warfare, Singer
said the Navy currently is at a point where it might
combine a cyber attack on enemy air defenses with
more traditional forms of attack, such as what Israel
did in Operation Orchard in 2007 in destroying a suspected Syrian nuclear facility.

“The way they previously had done air strikes is exactly what we did against Iraq and Libya — you suppress

Force MultiplierNavy looks to develop cyber capabilities as part of its air warfare domainBy DANIEL P. TAYLOR, Special CorrespondentExpanding Capabilities

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John M. Richardson says
in “A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority” that cyber is
undeniably a growing part of the Navy’s efforts, and that
includes new ways of using cyber capabilities to do battle with
opposing forces.

n The Navy’s cyber warriors are developing ways to take the
fight to the enemy, and that includes air warfare.

n The Navy has the ability today to use cyber attacks, along with
traditional methods like jamming radars and missiles, as a way to
combat enemy air defenses.

n The 10th Fleet is focused on countering threats “from every
angle,” including the domain of air warfare, the 10th Fleet commander said.